Matteo Nannini claimed Juncos Hollinger Racing’s first pole in Indy Nxt since the 2019 season by topping qualifying on Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course.
Friday started with a 50-minute practice session, which HMD Motorsports’ Kyffin Simpson topped by 0.1137 seconds over Andretti Autosport’s Hunter McElrea. Nannini was fourth fastest, 0.2821s off the pace, with the top 16 covered by less than nine tenths of a second.
For Nannini to then top qualifying was a surprise, having featured far down the qualifying order in the previous two rounds.
However he managed to get a lap in good enough for pole early in the qualifying session, and was fastest by 0.1273s over McElrea.
Only 0.0603s further behind was Louis Foster in another of Andretti’s cars, then a HMD quartet filled the next four positions. The session was just as close as practice, with 0.9559s covering the top 17 and under half a second splitting the top eight.
Championship leader Christian Rasmussen will start Saturday’s race from sixth place, while Rasmus Lindh will start 10th for his first outing with Juncos since 2021. He has replaced Reece Gold, who has joined HMD and qualified 15th.
Qualifying results
| Pos | Driver | Team | Time | Gap | Laps |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Matteo Nannini | Juncos Racing | 1m15.3194s | 6 | |
| 2 | Hunter McElrea | Andretti Autosport | 1m15.4467s | +0.1273s | 6 |
| 3 | Louis Foster | Andretti Autosport | 1m15.5070s | +0.1876s | 6 |
| 4 | Kyffin Simpson | HMD Motorsports | 1m15.5334s | +0.2140s | 6 |
| 5 | Josh Green | HMD Motorsports | 1m15.6517s | +0.3323s | 6 |
| 6 | Christian Rasmussen | HMD Motorsports | 1m15.6814s | +0.3620s | 7 |
| 7 | Josh Pierson | HMD Motorsports | 1m15.7763s | +0.4569s | 6 |
| 8 | James Roe Jr | Andretti Autosport | 1m15.7949s | +0.4755s | 6 |
| 9 | Jacob Abel | Abel Motorsports | 1m15.8840s | +0.5646s | 7 |
| 10 | Rasmus Lindh | Juncos Racing | 1m15.9196s | +0.6002s | 6 |
| 11 | Enaam Ahmed | Cape Motorsports | 1m15.9371s | +0.6177s | 7 |
| 12 | Danial Frost | HMD Motorsports | 1m15.9399s | +0.6205s | 7 |
| 13 | Colin Kaminsky | Abel Motorsports | 1m16.0357s | +0.7163s | 7 |
| 14 | Jamie Chadwick | Andretti Autosport | 1m16.0817s | +0.7623s | 6 |
| 15 | Reece Gold | HMD Motorsports | 1m16.0982s | +0.7788s | 6 |
| 16 | Nolan Siegel | HMD Motorsports | 1m16.2173s | +0.8979s | 7 |
| 17 | Jagger Jones | Cape Motorsports | 1m16.2753s | +0.9559s | 6 |
| 18 | Christian Bogle | HMD Motorsports | 1m16.4292s | +1.1098s | 6 |